princess—from a very good family, you understand—well, she was suggesting she do things to him in the bedroom that one might expect at a French whorehouse.”
“A French whorehouse.” The governor swallowed hard.
“At first I thought this was maybe an English thing. Due to their proximity to the European ways, you know. But Bennett told me she said it was definitely from the library. Spreading filth. Suggestions that would make a grown man blush. I mean, where will it end?”
“That’s the, uh, pretty blonde? The one I met last year at dinner.”
“The very one. Alice. Finer than frog hair. The shock of hearing salaciousness proposed by a girl like that . . . Well . . .”
The governor took another very long sip of his drink. His eyes had gone a little glassy. “Did he give, uh, details of the exact activities she was proposing? Just so, you know, I can be clear on the full picture.”
Mr. Van Cleve shook his head. “Poor Bennett was so shook up it took him weeks even to confide in me. Hasn’t felt able to lay a finger on her since. I mean it ain’t right, Governor. Not for decent God-fearing wives to be suggesting such deviance.”
The governor appeared to be deep in thought.
“Governor?”
“Filth . . . Right. Sorry, yes . . . I mean, no.”
“Anyway. I would appreciate knowing whether other counties are having the same issues with their women and these so-called libraries. I can’t believe this is a good thing, for our workforce or Christian families. My inclination would be to shut the scheme down altogether. Likewise with this mining-permissions business.”
Mr. Van Cleve folded his napkin and laid it on the table. The governor was still apparently considering this very carefully.
“Or perhaps you think the best way forward would be just . . . to deal with the matter in whichever way we thought fit.”
He wasn’t sure, he told Bennett afterward, whether the governor’s drink had actually gone to his head. He seemed markedly distracted toward the end of lunch.
“So what did he say?” said Bennett, who had cheered up with the purchase of some new corduroys and a striped sweater.
“I told him maybe I should deal with all these matters how I liked and he just said, ‘hmm, yes, quite,’ and then said he had to leave.”
Dear Alice
I am sorry married life is not as you expected. I’m not sure what you think marriage should be about, and you have not given us details of what it is you find so dispiriting, but Daddy and I wonder if we haven’t given you false expectations. You have a handsome husband, financially secure and able to offer you a good future. You have married into a decent family with significant resources. I think you need to learn to count your chickens.
Life is not always about happiness. It is about duty, and taking satisfaction from doing the right thing. We were hoping you had learned to be less impulsive; well, you’ve made your bed, and you’re just going to have to learn to stick things out. Perhaps if you have a baby it will give you a focus, so you don’t dwell on things so.
If you do choose to return without your husband, I have to inform you that you will not be welcome to stay here.
Your loving mother
Alice had held off opening the letter, perhaps because she had known the words she was going to find within it. She felt her jaw tighten, then folded it carefully and placed it back in her bag, noting once more as she did so that her fingernails, once highly polished and filed, were now ragged or cut down to the quick, and some small part of her wondered, as she did daily, whether that was the reason he didn’t want to touch her?
“Okay,” said Margery, appearing at her shoulder. “I ordered two new girths and a saddle cloth from Crompton’s and I thought maybe this for Fred as a thank-you. Think he’ll like it?” She held up a dark green scarf. The department-store assistant, transfixed by Margery’s beaten-up leather hat and breeches (she couldn’t see the point in dressing up to come to Lexington, she had told Alice, as she’d only have to get changed again when she got back), had needed a second to remember to take it from her, ready to wrap in tissue. “We’ll have to hide it from Fred on the ride back.”